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MONTHLY NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER
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Welcome to the September Newsletter and to all new
subscribers. Please introduce your tennis, colleagues, students, club
members etc to: to sign up for their free email newsletter. YOU CAN NOW GO TO THE ARCHIVES FOR PAST NEWSLETTERS BY CLICKING ON THE FOLLOWING LINK:
Where
has the summer gone, it has not been a particularly wet summer but it has also not been very sunny. However, I do hope you have all enjoyed your tennis,
whether it has been playing socially or participating in the local, county or national leagues. Some of us will be disappointed with our results
and others will be over the moon. As Jimmy Connors once commented, the next best think
after playing tennis and winning, is playing tennis and losing. We have to remember at the end of the day – It is just
a game! Some of you will continue to play competitive tennis
throughout the winter months; tennis has become an all year round sport. I continue to coach students right the way through
the winter – it is an ideal time to reflect on what you need to do to improve your shots, you technique and your tactics
and finally your fitness. Remember, it is very easy to become unfit and takes about 6 weeks to recover from a weeks lay off. An area that always concerns me with any sports person
is that of fitness – stamina and strength. If you really want to succeed
in the modern world of sport, you really have to concentrate on all aspects of fitness. The person who is fittest stands a
much better chance of coming out on top. I have for a number of years observed that if we
want to produce a number of players of world class standard, then we must have a lot more clay courts in the U.K. On clay the players have longer rallies, it is not
easy to win points and it is necessary to build a point, it is not possible to just go all out for winners. I have played a lot on clay courts (hartrue) in the
states, whilst it is a different game to that played on hardcourts, it certainly makes you more patient and the need to concentrate
for longer and keep your focus. Now we have a new talent appear in the form of Andrew
Murray and he proves the point having trained in Spain on clay courts. The following is an extract from Ace magazine dwelling
on A.M. “Being able to train all year round on clay is a huge advantage. It’s the one surface that finds all your
weaknesses and prepares both your mind and physique for pro tennis.” Enjoy the coming months of tennis – even when
it is cold – wet and windy !!!
In This Issue As a thank you for subscribing to the monthly newsletter, there is a FREE BONUS
of 100 drills. See below.
HOW
TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL CLUB or IMPROVE YOUR EXISTING CLUB. Every club wants
to be more successful and the question is ‘What is more success?’ My new website
will help and advise on improving your club, with lots of ideas to put into practice. Your committee and members may need
a change of mind, but progress often entails radical thinking. The website can be accessed
via the website: http://www.tennisatthenet.com LEARN THE SLICE SERVE. It is worth having two different serves in your armoury as this will keep
your opponent of balance and win you a few easy points. Most players have what is generally termed a flat serve, although there
is no such thing as a completely flat serve; generally the ball needs to be hit up and the momentum will bring the ball down
once it has passed over the net. The two alternative serves are the ‘Topspin Serve’ and the ‘Slice
Serve’. I do not teach the topspin serve until my students have mastered both the
flat and the slice serve. In fact I now teach beginners the slice serve first as I have found this actually helps them when
moving in to the flat serve, as it helps to eliminate the frying pan serve. Hold your racuet with a continental (chopper) grip. Throw the ball up a
little further to the right (2 o’clock on the clock face) (or to your left if you’re a left-hander) then hit the
outside edge with a glancing blow that causes the ball to spin forward and clockwise. It is similar to hitting the ball from
9 o’clock round to 3 o’clock, but imagining the clock face is semi-diagonal to you. Practice pulling your opponent
out wide in the deuce court (ad court for left-handed servers) to open up the court for the next ball. As a practice and to get better at hitting sharp angles, start near the
service line and gradually move back to the baseline. DOUBLES TIP: A play which I like to do in a doubles
match is to do a drop shot, across court so that it just lands in the tramlines, no more than 2 feet from the net, but you
must be ready for the opponents return – especially if they are fast around the court. Your partner will be on their side of the
court ( see following illustration) and therefore they have few options open to them. The favourite with good players is a
return again cross court very close to the net. You may be ready to cut this off, but tennis is a game of cunning and bluff;
your opponent may take the risk that this is what you will do and thus put the ball behind you as you run to that side. I
always counteract this possibility and go to the position shown in the illustration, and you will get no end of winners by
cutting off the shot.
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General drill
– RAPID FEED. TESTING VOLLEY
DRILL. The coach and players
each have 4 or 5 balls. Coach starts and rapid
feeds the balls to the volleyer, as soon as finished the next player does the same, until all balls expended. Then
players switch round until all have had a go. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Fun Game - BOMBS & BULLETS.
Players can move anywhere within the two service boxes.
Coach has basket of transition balls at the back of the court. He lobs some balls in to the air (The Bombs) and hits other balls at their feet (The Bullets).
Anyone hit is out. Those left in at end of basket win. Take
care of safety as a number of the balls will bounce off the net and the players could fall over them, make sure they are removed
as the game goes along.
Playing
Successful Doubles.  ISOLATE THE PLAYER. This is another
advanced playing situation and today we are looking at isolating a player from the net position. When attacking the net and you volley the ball, whoever the volley goes to at the baseline, you isolate
that player by only attacking their half of the court. In other words you only volley the ball to their half and this puts them under extra pressure, you have in essence eliminated their partner from the game and
set you and your partner up to win the point. This is now a two on one situation. DON’T HIT THE BALL TO THE PERSON AT THE NET ! ! ! One of the basic
rules for winning in doubles play is to avoid hitting the ball to the player at the net. Because they are usually the player
in the best position to hit a winner, Correct ? This is of
course true for the majority of the time, but not always; there are other considerations to be made. Also, do not
presume that your opponent’s volleying skills are good until you have testes them out. They may be an average volleyer
and feel that they ought to be at the net, so that is where they park themselves. You should hit a few good returns at the
net player, early in the game, as this will have an affect on their play. The way to
test out your opponent at the net is to take one or two shots early in the match, when you are returning the serve. Hit one
shot down the line, one over their head (a lob) and one quite hard, directly at them; this will give you and your partner
a fairly good assessment of their volleying and overhead skills. Before doing
this, it is a good idea to tell your partner your intentions, this will enable them to be ready for the opponents possible
reply. Even if your
opponent has good volleying skills, by hitting a few balls as suggested, will keep them honest and they will not be so ready
to poach your crosscourt returns. They will realise that you are adept at down the line returns. There is another
time that you should hit the ball the net players way. We have a saying deep to deep and close to close; the first scenario
is logical in that if you are at the baseline playing a ball and your opponent is also on the baseline, then you keep the
ball going back to the opponent on the baseline, and hit at this stage to the net player could be quickly dispatched. However, if
the ball comes to you at the net, from the baseline player, or from the net player, you do not hit the ball back to the baseliner,
this gives them another opportunity to keep in the rally. The ball should be hit towards the opposing net player and there
are three places to put the ball. 1/. Down the missle at an angle, between the net and baseline
players – but obviously not so that the baseliner can reach it. 2/. At the feet of the net player – this will mean their having to
lift the ball up and present an easy put away volley. 3/. An acute angle return in front of them, but this needs to be good so
that they are unable to get in a return. If the net
player is a good volleyer, you may then get into a volley rally situation, and must be ready to kill the loose ball. TO VIEW GO TO: HTTP://WWW.TENNISATTHENET.COM I.T.F approved pressurised Tennis balls – can of four only £2.60 plus postage. See on website -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--= Tennis Racquets and Stringing. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Top Quality racquets and excellent junior racquets at competitive prices. Until next month, John Hoskins – Coach. BEWARE ! Please feel free to pass this tip on to your family and friends, however, before doing this, please delete the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email, otherwise they may accidentally unsubscribe you. You are subscribed to ‘’Tennis
at the net Newsletter’’ . If you have received this
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